The Connection
by understar
Summary: Ties that bind can be used against you. (One-shot, OOC)


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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_**The Connection**_

Team Seven. Or Cell Seven, if you want to call it that. They both mean the same thing to everyone here, apparently. There's no reason why they shouldn't. Teams work together, or are supposed to, as are cells. No, there's no reason to fret over one term or another. Whichever way you put it, one thing comes across, or is intended to: these three people work together to do an essential job.

Well, it's fine if you want to believe that. It's fine if you want to believe _all_ of it, for that matter—all the grandiose rumors and 'official' news you've heard about us. How we're a team destined to go down in the history of Konohagakure, a team chock-full of ability and skill. I don't really mind if you aren't listening to me, either. Hey, maybe it's better if you don't listen. You know, for your 'sanity' and all that other nonsense. Whatever floats your boat.

Even if you aren't listening, even if nobody is listening, even if I pinch myself, wake up, and find I've been talking to the cracked plaster on the wall, I've been silent for far too long. The moon is full and high overhead. The stars gleam like scraps of metal welded to an unforgiving black sky. And I have to tell _somebody_.

But tell _me_ this first. I'm assuming you've read our profiles, the ones posted in the daily paper, in our honors or so they said. I'm also assuming you weren't too caught up in the vast passages of Sasuke and Naruto's accomplishments, and found time to read the paragraph or so on the teammate towards the bottom. Now, please remind me—what did it say?

Wait, how about you don't do that. I'm sure I can recite it from memory. I read it over plenty of times. Out of disbelief, you know. Or maybe not quite that. Maybe out of surprise and guilt, at its stinging accuracy and blatant avoidance of the truth. The horrible, horrible truth.

"Haruno Sakura. This bright kunoichi hopeful accompanies her teammates on all but the most dangerous of missions. Although she has no outstanding skills or ability, her mind is said to be sharp as the kunai she carries, and she serves an important role as the glue that holds Team Seven together."

Yes, the truth hurts, I've found. It hurts like _hell_. Especially when nobody else has the courage to break it to you in person. Especially when you have to find it out for yourself.

Because you didn't know until then, you just didn't have a clue. You thought you were flying high, and then the hammer hits you on the head and some workman scolds you for being dumb enough to walk under the ladder in the first place. And even then, some people don't see it. Their only thoughts as they hobble away are in thankfulness, that it wasn't a bucket of paint.

I don't want to be like that anymore. I used to play games with myself, not so long ago, trying to see how well I could hold the illusion. Trying to see how easy I was to fool into believing that what they said was true. That I was crucial to Team Seven's existence. That I was that illusive 'glue' they spoke of so highly, in such demeaning, lofty tones. That I didn't need any skills, or strength, or personality of my own, because I was a connector and nothing more.

And then I tried to fool myself again, into thinking that I was enjoying all of this.

Oh, you're right. It wasn't all pure self-deception. There was that part of me, that stupid, foolish, whiny part that still played with dolls, who helped quite a bit. _She_ was the one who refused to give up on Sasuke, even though I'd forgotten what I had ever seen in him. _She_ was the one who refused to release my idealistic, meaningless childhood fantasies. _She_ was the one who refused to allow me to grow into a _truly_ strong shinobi, _truly_ free from emotion and attachment.

She was my greatest enemy, yet I somehow knew she'd be there forever. Like an overprotective parent whose use was long outlived, maddening to no end but impossible to kill.

_Let's just say I proved myself wrong in that assumption. _

For a while, there was a void in the corner of my mind where she'd hidden for a lifetime. It felt odd at first, as if I'd lost something, somewhere, sometime between now and then; but I got used to it. And by then, I could feel something _else_ sprouting up in the empty space. Something formidable, something undefeatable. Something with powerfully insane green eyes that peers from the darkness and tells me another truth.

Tells me that she who is the connector can also be the divider.

And you can just _imagine_ how many ideas that gives me.

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One more ten-minute psychopathic Sakura one-shot added to the heap...Inspired by all those happy-ending stories that skirt Sakura's actual worth and instead make up the excuse that she 'holds the team together'. 


End file.
